This seems like an evolution of "access journalism": powerful public figures pressured the press into not giving them (overly) negative coverage in exchange for getting things like sit-down interviews, and now that the press is showing a tiny bit of backbone (or there are popular writers who don't care about access giving that negative coverage), see also the Pentagon walkout, the politicians are scandalised.
Thanks Mike. Your answering a question with (a bunch of) questions effectively showed the unfathomable lack of insight in the authors you referenced. Or could we call it unfathomable denial?
Thank you for sticking up for HCR. She has been my first read when I get up at 5 am for years now. I would say her accuracy rate is at least 98%. Compared with Faux Noise with an accuracy rate of .1%. The right wing oligarchs are getting scared because finally people are starting to wake up to what some of us have been saying ever since the election. Keep doing what you're doing Mike. Maybe we can save our country.
You should do a piece about Matt Taibbi. I used to be a big fan, but he’s turned into a Trump apologist. He bothers me more than others because his whole schtick is investigative journalism and free speech. But every outrageous violation of free speech gets ignored or downplayed. At best, he will grudgingly admit he isn’t comfortable like with Öztürk or Kimmel. ICE is merely “immigration enforcement” but EU internet content moderation is Tyranny. I really don’t get it. It’s like he hates liberal and European elite establishment so much that he will only focus on their sins and then ignore or downplay every Trump outrage. And it’s just infuriating because he isn’t MAGA, was never even a conservative. Even now he tends to just ignore most of what Trump is doing and just keep beating the dead horse of the Biden years and Russia gate
Greenwald isn’t as bad. He has no qualms torching Trumps idiotic policies like blowing up boats in Venezuela or targeting students for criticizing Israel. The other day called out how shameful and disgusting Pam Bondis performance in her congressional testimony was. I think his problem is he fits Trump in a long series of presidents abusing power and doesn’t consider him a unique and extreme threat
Yikes! It's good you focus on this key to a central puzzle. Errant normalizing in the guise of journalism is part of the propaganda mechanism. It's deliberate, not a mistake or a confusion, and it stinks of fascism. Thank you for exploring this. It's not so much a wonky detour but a crucial link to the degradation of public mental health, turning the public dialog into the famous swamp (the true image of the fascist projection). Be prepared for surprising warfare if we get this flight off the ground!
There are so many questions that a journalist could ask about Trump's government.
Such as "What is The Interagency Weaponization Working Group doing?"
"The Steady State, founded in 2016 and composed of some 340 former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security, urged Congressional lawmakers to look into The Interagency Weaponization Working Group, whose activities were closely examined Monday in an exclusive report by the Reuters news agency. The group’s mission, it said, was “basically to go after ‘the Deep State,’” a term that Trump and his minions use to describe officials who have opposed the president’s positions and mandates, especially in the national security realm. Prime targets have been Justice Department officials, FBI agents and CIA officials who investigated the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia or prosecuted Jan. 6 rioters."
This seems like an evolution of "access journalism": powerful public figures pressured the press into not giving them (overly) negative coverage in exchange for getting things like sit-down interviews, and now that the press is showing a tiny bit of backbone (or there are popular writers who don't care about access giving that negative coverage), see also the Pentagon walkout, the politicians are scandalised.
Thanks Mike. Your answering a question with (a bunch of) questions effectively showed the unfathomable lack of insight in the authors you referenced. Or could we call it unfathomable denial?
Thank you for sticking up for HCR. She has been my first read when I get up at 5 am for years now. I would say her accuracy rate is at least 98%. Compared with Faux Noise with an accuracy rate of .1%. The right wing oligarchs are getting scared because finally people are starting to wake up to what some of us have been saying ever since the election. Keep doing what you're doing Mike. Maybe we can save our country.
You should do a piece about Matt Taibbi. I used to be a big fan, but he’s turned into a Trump apologist. He bothers me more than others because his whole schtick is investigative journalism and free speech. But every outrageous violation of free speech gets ignored or downplayed. At best, he will grudgingly admit he isn’t comfortable like with Öztürk or Kimmel. ICE is merely “immigration enforcement” but EU internet content moderation is Tyranny. I really don’t get it. It’s like he hates liberal and European elite establishment so much that he will only focus on their sins and then ignore or downplay every Trump outrage. And it’s just infuriating because he isn’t MAGA, was never even a conservative. Even now he tends to just ignore most of what Trump is doing and just keep beating the dead horse of the Biden years and Russia gate
He's gone down the same road as Glenn Greenwald. I have to wonder how some who once saw so clearly can now be so completely blind!
Greenwald isn’t as bad. He has no qualms torching Trumps idiotic policies like blowing up boats in Venezuela or targeting students for criticizing Israel. The other day called out how shameful and disgusting Pam Bondis performance in her congressional testimony was. I think his problem is he fits Trump in a long series of presidents abusing power and doesn’t consider him a unique and extreme threat
This is true. But, Greenwald talks from a "both sides are just as bad" frame, which serves the side is that is worse, by default.
Yikes! It's good you focus on this key to a central puzzle. Errant normalizing in the guise of journalism is part of the propaganda mechanism. It's deliberate, not a mistake or a confusion, and it stinks of fascism. Thank you for exploring this. It's not so much a wonky detour but a crucial link to the degradation of public mental health, turning the public dialog into the famous swamp (the true image of the fascist projection). Be prepared for surprising warfare if we get this flight off the ground!
There are so many questions that a journalist could ask about Trump's government.
Such as "What is The Interagency Weaponization Working Group doing?"
"The Steady State, founded in 2016 and composed of some 340 former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security, urged Congressional lawmakers to look into The Interagency Weaponization Working Group, whose activities were closely examined Monday in an exclusive report by the Reuters news agency. The group’s mission, it said, was “basically to go after ‘the Deep State,’” a term that Trump and his minions use to describe officials who have opposed the president’s positions and mandates, especially in the national security realm. Prime targets have been Justice Department officials, FBI agents and CIA officials who investigated the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia or prosecuted Jan. 6 rioters."
https://substack.com/@spytalk/note/p-176776681
https://open.substack.com/pub/steadystate1/p/steady-state-letter-to-congress-reports
Back in the dark ages when I was in journalism school, it was never about reporting being “on balance.” It was all about reporting being on record.
What we have now isn’t news reporting. We have PR stories, paid interest-tailored communications.
https://open.substack.com/pub/morfmorford/p/dumb-questions?r=9hujo&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false